Increasingly angered and frustrated at the rate of dire new revelations about Amherstburg’s grim financial picture, the town’s deputy mayor said the province needs to appoint an emergency manager to take over the municipality’s operations.

The request from Ron Sutherland comes on the heels of the latest disturbing reports from chief administrative officer Mike Phipps over the mismanagement or misuse of millions of tax dollars.

“Every day, more is coming out and it’s absolutely ludicrous … people in Amherstburg are outraged,” Sutherland told The Star.

Sutherland said the final straw came Friday as he read Star columnist Anne Jarvis’s latest piece, “Tallying A’burg’s disaster,” in which she lists $1.5 million in apparently misplaced gas tax revenues and millions more collected in utility surcharges for projects that were never started. Sutherland said he was also angered reading how Phipps has instructed the town’s auditors “not to respond to further requests for clarification.”

The deputy mayor’s call for a provincial takeover of the town’s affairs came as a surprise to Sutherland’s colleagues.

“It’s a shock, really … it’s astounding, it really is,” said Mayor Wayne Hurst. “To just go off like this serves no other purpose than to generate apprehension and unnecessary worries on the part of residents,” he added.

Hurst said residents have “a right to be concerned” over the recent revelations, which include dedicated reserve funds being raided to address operating shortfalls elsewhere, but that “there’s a process, and that process has to be dealt with in-council, not by one individual.”

Both the Ontario Provincial Police and auditors with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs have been called in to investigate aspects of Amherstburg’s financial dealings.

Coun. Bart DiPasquale, one of the first to call for an outside audit in the fall, said he would have preferred that Sutherland bring his request to council first. But if it helps speed up any efforts to get the province to investigate the town’s books, “it’s worth the effort,” he added.

A spokesman for the government said that, because the OPP was first to announce its criminal investigation, any audit by the province has to wait until the police probe is completed.

On an extended Florida vacation, CAO Phipps told Jarvis in an email that he would “welcome a Ministry audit and a Ministry appointee to run the Town.” But, he added, “the Town needs far less finger pointing and more people to get involved to fix things.”

Responding to the columnist’s queries, Phipps, who departed last week and is not expected back until later this month, said he was “supportive if the Province decides to send a special manager who have full political and administrative control to ‘guide and right the ship’.”

Phipps, who became the town’s fifth CAO in five years when he was hired last summer, said his “very qualified and recently-hired staff” were “not part of the accounting and management over the past several years.” He said it was those town employees who had been advising of the “unorthodox financial management over several years that has created some significant financial pressures for the Town.”

Sutherland said the fact the town’s auditors are being advised by the CAO not to reply to outside queries “tells me they’re hiding something.”

Mike Maka, senior advisor to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Linda Jeffrey, told The Star that the government is in receipt of Sutherland’s request but that “as this matter is under investigation by the OPP it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”

A provincial takeover in Amherstburg, however, is very unlikely, according to a government source. Moosonnee (in 1968) is the only Ontario municipality to have ever seen such a radical intervention, and it would only happen after a successful petitioning of the minister to the Ontario Municipal Board.

“At this point, I’m not pressing the government to take over the administration of the town,” said local MPP Taras Natyshak (NDP – Essex). Natyshak, who helped council apply in late-January for a ministry audit, said he was “certainly concerned” about Amherstburg’s struggles to get a grip on its finances, but that the OPP probe is the next step.

Town council next meets on Monday. Hurst said he hopes administration will have completed its own review of Amherstburg’s financial situation before the end of March. “We will be able to deal with this … and ensure there is not a reoccurrence,” he said.

Lively discourse is the lifeblood of any healthy democracy and The Star encourages readers to engage in robust debates about our stories. But, please, avoid personal attacks and keep your comments respectful and relevant. If you encounter abusive comments, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. The Star is Using Facebook Comments. Visit our FAQ page for more information.